


Walk the Line

by Scrawlers



Series: Dual Blades [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Day 1 of Keitor Week: "Half-Galra", M/M, S4 / Post-S4, and with another dash of Uncle Wolf Kolivan because we still need more of that in this fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 10:21:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12579580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scrawlers/pseuds/Scrawlers
Summary: A long time ago, Keith's dad said to him, "If you straddle a fence, you can't say you're in either yard." Now, those words have taken on new meaning for Keith. He's half-human, half-Galra, and to many it seems that means he's not enough of either. He doesn't belong with any of them. But as difficult a grey space as Keith finds his identity to reside in, he also finds that the right company can make the experience more comfortable, and even enjoyable.





	Walk the Line

Idle bodies meant wandering minds, and the Blade of Marmora fortunately didn’t allow much time for either.

That wasn’t to say there was never any downtime. Everyone needed rest every now and again—everyone needed time to recover from a grueling mission, or even five minutes to find some breathing room in the midst of a ten-thousand-year war. But the Blade of Marmora had not led a resistance front against the Galra Empire for ten thousand years by idling. There was always work to be done. There were missions to go on, and intel to be collected and dissected. There were training rooms, too, that one could take advantage of if they weren’t in the middle of an assignment. There was plenty for Keith to do—plenty to keep him mind occupied, body and mind. As a new recruit who had every reason in the universe to want to prove himself to the agents who had been risking their lives for thousands of years to combat the Galra (and as someone who needed to  _be_ needed somewhere), Keith was more than willing to volunteer for any task he could get his hands on.

The primary base of the Blade of Marmora was split into several levels and wards. There were multiple observation decks that allowed the Blade of Marmora to view the expanse of space around their base to ensure that, in the event the black holes weren’t enough to keep away unwanted visitors, they could be prepared for any oncoming threats. There was the primary audience hall, as well as the Trial grounds, as well as training rooms. There were more “normal” areas as well, such as a mess hall, and of course the barracks. In addition to all of those areas, the base also had a large wing devoted to research and development, separated into different divisions. There was a division dedicated to decoding encrypted Empire transmissions (and translating other alien languages), a division dedicated to repairing and improving their ships, and a division dedicated to developing and manufacturing new weapons to ensure their armory remained well-stocked. It was to that division that Keith headed now, as a quick errand before he made his way to the tactical wing to discuss their next operation with Kolivan. The data drive in his hand contained information about a possible new source of luxite. It wasn’t guaranteed, and it was possible that what their sensors had detected as being luxite wasn’t actually the same exact metal as what their daggers and swords had been forged from. But with Daibazaal gone, any new potential source of luxite was worth investigating. Once the weapon development team had a look at the data, they would know for sure.

The weapon development division was the last room at the end of the corridor, just before the dock where their ships were worked on. Like most other rooms in the base, it locked automatically as soon as the door slid shut. Keith placed his hand against the lockpad to the right of the door; it took a prolonged second, but after a moment a white-purple glow surrounded the lockpad, and the door slid open. Keith smiled. He couldn’t say why, but it always felt a little good when the Marmorites’ technology responded to him.

The weapons development division had several rooms—workspaces—to its name. The door opened into a small little hallway, and the wall on the right cut away at the end to allow admittance to the first workspace. This room had always felt a little small to Keith. Two long workstations lined the walls to the left or right, with various tablets, monitors, and glowing keyboards spread over them. A door on the other side of the room led to a much larger workspace, but Keith had yet to venture into that room. Despite how badly his curiosity gnawed at him every time he visited, the most he’d been privy to were small glances the few times the door on the other side opened while he happened to be dropping something off. Weapons development was not his field, particularly given how new he was, but he wasn’t opposed to learning. Even if he never forged a knife or dagger himself, he’d love to have the chance to see how it was done.

If nothing else, it would be another way to keep himself occupied.

But that wasn’t important now. He had another task to concern himself with. The first workspace of the weapons development division was thankfully occupied when Keith rounded the corner at the end of the little entry hall, but although the room’s sole occupant looked up when he entered, it only took a tick for it to become apparent that he wasn’t exactly thrilled to see Keith.

The weapons development team was comprised of a small, core group of agents, led by an aged Marmorite named Pezak. Older than Kolivan by a good number of years, Pezak had what Keith always thought of as crow’s feet around his eyes, and splashes of grey in his hair. He got on well enough with the other members of his division, from what Keith knew, and Kolivan had never said anything bad about him. Yet every time Keith encountered him, he was met with a grizzly attitude that bordered on cold, and this time seemed no different. Pezak looked up when Keith entered, and though at first his eyebrows were raised and his expression looked open, the moment he saw that it was Keith who had come around the corner, his face fell in what looked like disinterest before he turned back to the tablet he had been studying. It was for all the universe like Keith wasn’t standing in the room at all.

Well, that was tough for a few reasons (not the least of which being that, since Pezak was  _in charge_ of the weapons development division, his apparent dislike of Keith meant that Keith really wasn’t going to get anywhere near the other workspaces any time soon), but it also wasn’t important. Whether Pezak wanted to ignore him or not, they both had jobs to do. Keith crossed the floor to join Pezak at the workstation, and when he was near enough, he held the data drive out for Pezak to take.

“Hey,” Keith said. “Garus asked me to bring this to you. He said they found a possible new source of luxite.”

Pezak hadn’t looked up, or even so much as twitched, when Keith crossed the room or held the data drive out to him. He didn’t turn even when Keith spoke, though the moment the words  _new source of luxite_ left Keith’s mouth, his brow pinched together in the middle, and his lips tugged down into a severe frown as he said, “That’s impossible.”

“He said they found it in an asteroid at the edge of the solar system,” Keith said. “They’re not entirely sure if it’s the exact same kind of luxite used to forge our blades, but—”

“It can’t be.  _Our_ blades were forged from luxite mined from the planet Daibazaal,” Pezak said. He still didn’t look at Keith, nor did he make any move to take the data drive. Sick of holding it (and feeling bothered in a way he couldn’t exactly name by the emphasis Pezak had placed on the word  _our_ ), Keith set the drive on the workstation, next to the tablet Pezak was examining.

“I know,” Keith said, “but Garus thinks that maybe this asteroid was formed from the debris of Daibazaal. It’s not likely,” he added, as Pezak opened his mouth, “but he thinks there’s a possibility. If nothing else, maybe this metal is an offshoot of luxite that can still be used to make new weapons. It can’t hurt to look into it.”

A dark scowl crossed Pezak’s face, but it was gone before Keith could question it. Pezak sighed heavily, and though he still didn’t so much as glance in Keith’s direction, he picked up the data drive at last.

“Very well,” he said. “Tell Garus I’ll look into it.”

“I will,” Keith said. The door on the other side of the room opened, then, and another member of the weapons development team—Didrin—entered. Keith couldn’t resist standing on his tiptoes to try to steal another glance into the second workspace before the door slid shut again. “Thanks.”

“What’s going on?” Didrin asked.

Rather than answering Didrin, Pezak tilted his head toward Keith and said, “You can go.”

It wasn’t a suggestion. It was barely even a dismissal, and the worst part was that there was no reason for it. Keith did have somewhere to be—he had to report to Kolivan now that he had dropped off the data drive, whatever he said to Pezak about telling Garus that the luxite was being looked into—but that didn’t mean Pezak had to shoo him from the room before discussing the data drive with Didrin. It wasn’t as if Keith didn’t know what was on the drive. He was the one who had delivered it.

But there was no use in arguing it. In the short time Keith had known him, Pezak had always been like this. Even if he wasn’t, Keith  _did_ have somewhere to be. So he gave a short nod to Didrin as both a hello and goodbye, and then spun on the ball of his foot so he could head back around the corner and to the door. It was just after he placed his hand against the lockpad, and the door slid back with a faint hiss, that he heard Pezak speak to Didrin at last.

“The halfling brought this on behalf of Garus.”

Keith froze.

Didrin hissed through his teeth, as though burned by something. “Ooh, that’s not a good thing to say. What is this?”

“It’s a data drive supposedly containing intel on a new source of luxite,” Pezak said. “What’s not a good thing to say?”

Keith placed one foot on the threshold, just enough to trigger the sensor to stop the door from closing. He shouldn’t—he should leave, he didn’t need to hear this—but—

“What you said when you said who brought in this data drive,” Didrin said. “You better not let Kolivan hear you calling him that.”

“It’s what he is,” Pezak said, indignant, and Keith clenched his fists by his sides. His heart was racing; adrenaline was making every one of his nerves feel alive. “And are you telling me that ‘halfling’ is off the table now? We’re not even allowed to say  _that_ anymore? What—it’s not like I called him half-breed, or mongrel, or c—”

“ _Pezak_ ,” Didrin hissed.

“ _What_? I’m only speaking the truth. Anyone can tell just by looking at him—”

Didrin shushed Pezak loudly before he said, “All I’m saying is you know Kolivan has a fondness for the boy. It’s probably not the wisest idea to let these things be overheard.”

“Overheard by  _who_? We’re the only ones here.”

“Still,” Didrin said. He sounded uncomfortable. “Just—keep it in mind, for future conversations. Don’t call him that so casually, just in case.”

Pezak heaved another suffering sigh. “Fine. Anyway, as I was saying, the hal— _this_ data drive was delivered on behalf of Garus. Supposedly there’s an asteroid that might have metal resembling luxite, and he wants us to take a look to see . . .”

That was it. That was the end of it. Keith forced himself over the threshold, leaving the weapon development division before Pezak could finish speaking, the door sliding shut behind him. Whether Pezak or Didrin would hear the hiss of the door shutting, Keith didn’t know. He also didn’t care. He was clenching his jaw so tightly it hurt a little, and as he made his way to the tactical wing to go over their next strategy with Kolivan, he did so at a pace just under a run.

It wasn’t—at least it explained Pezak’s attitude. He knew now why Pezak was always so cold to him. It was more than he could say for the way Lance had always acted. They spent so much time together as members of the same team, and even now Keith couldn’t say why Lance had always had such a problem with him—why Lance had never seemed to like him. At least now he had a reason for Pezak. That was something. And it was better than nothing; it was better than not knowing. Even if the reason why Pezak hated him was because he was only  _half_ -Galra, something he couldn’t do anything about, at least he knew. At least now he knew.

He slammed his hand against the lockpad for the elevator. The white-purple glow was still soft and warm, but when Keith slid his hand off the pad as he waited for the elevator to descend, he curled his fingers into a fist by his side again.

There was no reason for him to be this upset. He knew that. It wasn’t as if he had never experienced this before. Even before the rest of the team in the Castle learned that he was part-Galra and had reacted accordingly, it wasn’t like things had always been perfect back on Earth. From the sheer number of people who pronounced his last name incorrectly (including one teacher in middle school who, no matter how many times Keith said, “It’s ‘Koh-gah-nay,’” still insisted on calling him “Ko-gain” every time she wanted to get his attention), to the social workers and police officers who slowly and deliberately asked him if he spoke English, to the classmates who insisted on mockingly calling him Jackie Chan, Keith had faced his fair share of prejudice in his time. Sure, no one on Earth had known that he was part-Galra (though he imagined that their reactions probably would’ve been along the same lines as Hunk’s jabs if they had), but that hadn’t stopped them from looking at the fact that he was part-Japanese and ripping on that. If anything, Keith was used to the smaller aggressions, and knew well enough how to tune them out by now (or at least how to stop bothering to tell people how his last name was actually pronounced). 

But he had thought it would be different here. The elevator arrived as that realization settled in his chest, and Keith swallowed hard as he boarded. When he learned that he was part-Galra, he started thinking of himself as  _Galra._ He never really added the modifier. Allura certainly hadn’t, when she had first found out, and neither had Hunk. That he was  _part-_ Galra hadn’t mattered to  _them_. In their eyes, he was as good as  _all_ Galra. He was, as Hunk had so  _kindly_  put it, “Galra Keith.” Since he was “Galra Keith” to them, Keith had figured he would be “Galra Keith” to others, too. He had figured that the Galra members of the Blade of Marmora wouldn’t see him any differently, wouldn’t look down on him. They would accept him, because he was one of them. He had passed the Trials, and he was Galra. That was good enough.

. . . But it wasn’t.

Keith was used to it. He was more than used to it by now. He didn’t fit in with the Paladins, even after they came to terms with his heritage, and as much as he might have thought otherwise, Pezak made it clear that he couldn’t fit in here, either. His dad had once told him,“If you straddle a fence, you can’t say you’re in either yard.” His dad had said that to explain why a wishy-washy politician wasn’t actually supporting either of the groups he was claiming to want to help, but now Keith understand the phrase to have another meaning.He wasn’t fully human, and he wasn’t fully Galra. He wasn’t either, so he didn’t belong to either of them. Neither yard was his. Neither  _world_ was his, and it was something he had to accept—something he  _should_ have accepted, a long time ago.

The elevator came to a smooth stop, and the door slid back with a soft  _whoosh._ This entire floor was the tactical wing, and the control room where Kolivan was waiting for him was situated dead center. Keith made his way to the door, yet though he raised his hand above the lockpad to let himself into the room, he hesitated, his hand frozen just before making contact.

No. He couldn’t go in there. Not like this.

Keith lowered his hand, balling his fingers into fists once more. He squeezed his eyes shut, and took a slow, deep breath through his nose. He was fine. He had to be fine. He couldn’t let this— _any_  of this—get in the way. He had a job to do—a duty. They all did. And none of them—no one in the Blade of Marmora would let a personal matter like this interfere with that duty. The overall mission of winning the war was greater than any one of them, and that included him. What happened didn’t matter. How he felt about it didn’t matter. The best thing he could do was not think about it. Expressing his feelings had never helped when he was a Paladin of Voltron. There was no way it would be productive now. He had to focus on the mission. He had to get himself under control. He had to  _focus._

It took another few seconds (seconds wasted, seconds wasted because of something  _unimportant_ ), but he finally managed to slow his heartrate, and ease the tension in his muscles. He pressed his lips in a thin line, and after taking another steadying breath, he placed his hand against the lockpad. The glow emanated from his touch, and the door slid back to allow him entry. Pezak might not have approved of him, but the technology in the base sure did.

Not that it was something he needed to think about.

The control room was large, at least in comparison to the weapons development workspaces. A massive, circular console was positioned dead center, and similarly gigantic monitors were fixed to the back wall. Kolivan, as expected, was already there. He was working with the computers in the back, his fingers skirting over the keys as he studied the Galran script splashed across the screen. Yet when the door slid open and Keith entered, Kolivan turned to look back at him. A smile flitted across his face.

“Right on time,” Kolivan said. There was a note of approval in his voice that made the knot in Keith’s chest lessen just a little.

“I try to be,” Keith said.

Kolivan nodded, that same approving smile still on his lips, but his smile faded as Keith came to stand beside him. Before Keith could ask why Kolivan was suddenly frowning, his brow creased, Kolivan asked, “Is something amiss?”

For a moment, all Keith could do was gape at him.  _How_ , he wanted to ask.  _How_ had Kolivan—it hadn’t even been  _ten seconds_. How had he—

“No,” Keith said, and he hated the way he stumbled over that word, that one, simple,  _easy_ word. He cleared his throat, and looked at the monitor Kolivan had been examining. He couldn’t read a word of what was on the screen, but that didn’t matter. It was easier to look at than Kolivan was right then. “Everything’s fine. What’ve we got?”

The silence that met his response told Keith that Kolivan didn’t believe him. But that was fine; Kolivan didn’t have to believe him, he just had to let the subject go. Keith wasn’t going to let something as stupid as being called a name get in the way of the mission. He wasn’t going to give Pezak even more of a reason to resent a  _halfling_ being among their ranks.

Thankfully, after what felt like several seconds (or maybe it was several ticks), Kolivan did as Keith wanted him to.

“There have been reports of increased Empire activity in the Alloran quadrant,” Kolivan said. He turned away from the monitors he had been examining to walk over to the circular console in the center of the room, and Keith followed. One touch to one of the diamond-shaped touchpads on the side of the console caused a hologram globe of a galaxy to flare to life atop the console, and with a gentle swipe of his finger, he turned the globe so they could examine a different side of the map, highlighted in red. “But we’ve noticed that the Empire ships stationed there aren’t part of the main fleet.”

“Are they supply ships?” Keith asked, and his heart skipped unsteadily in his chest as he added, “Or Lotor’s?”

“They are not supply ships, and I don’t believe them to be connected to Prince Lotor, but at this point it is too early to tell,” Kolivan said. Keith’s heart sank. All this time, and there was  _still_ no lead— “The agents we have stationed in the Alloran quadrant have reported unusual activity from the ships stationed there, however. Those reports are what I was reading when you walked in.”

Keith looked back at the screen. The Galra language, when spoken, was full of hard consonants and sharp sounds. There were vowels in there, but the words still clattered when spoken softly, and bludgeoned when shouted. When written the language was no less sharp, but something about it still looked pretty. The way the symbols sometimes curved around before ending in sharp points, like sickles, or struck out in sharp zags like lightning . . . it was the sort of thing tattoos were made of back on Earth. Sometimes Keith liked to trace the symbols with his finger, invisibly drawing them into the crook of his arm during mission briefings.

But as interesting and nice looking as the Galra script was, right now it presented a problem.

“I can’t read any of that,” he said. He hated the words the second they came out of his mouth. Though it was true, the fact that the Galra language was still  _alien_ to him was yet another thing that separated him from the rest of the Galra (the  _full_ Galra) in the base. They all had no problem reading, writing, and speaking the Galran language. Yet Keith, who was supposed to be Galra himself, couldn’t read a word, and was just left thinking that the script might make for a cool tattoo. It wasn’t like  _this_ was anything new, either—it wasn’t like his dad had ever taught him to speak, read, or write Japanese—but somehow it felt worse as he stood there, having admitted it to Kolivan, especially knowing that Didrin thought that Kolivan (unlike Pezak) actually liked him.

But if Kolivan thought less of him for not knowing the language, he didn’t show it. Instead, he hummed a little in a way that Keith, for a split second, thought sounded like a muted laugh before he said, “Then perhaps it’s time you learned.”

Keith’s head snapped up, and he stared at Kolivan with wide eyes. “What? Really?”

“Yes. Learning at least the basics of reading Galran will be crucial in the missions ahead. Learning to speak it will be even more useful in the event we need to infiltrate Empire ships again.” Kolivan strode forward to stand closer to the monitors fixed to the back wall, and looked back over his shoulder to motion for Keith to follow him. “The written script is not that difficult to learn. Come. I’ll show you.”

It wasn’t something they really had time for. They were supposed to be figuring out their next strategy. But the reports on the monitor that Kolivan wanted to assist Keith in translating were mission critical, and Kolivan had a point when he said that learning the Galran language would be beneficial for the missions ahead. Maybe Keith wasn’t Galra  _enough_ for some, but learning a language didn’t really have anything to do with that. This wasn’t about how much Galra blood he had in him. This was about learning a necessary skill for the success of the missions ahead.

Keith followed Kolivan over to the monitors along the back wall and said, “Okay. Show me.”

**\- - -**

In the weeks that followed, the battle for Naxcela came and went, and the Blade of Marmora gained a new ally in the last person Keith would have ever dreamed of:

Lotor.

Even now, days later, he still couldn’t believe it. Part of his disbelief came from the fact that he was alive at all; he had thought he was going to die, and he had prepared himself for that. He wasn’t happy about it—who could be happy when they were about to die?—but he had accepted it. It was for the greater good. It was the right thing to do. No matter how much Matt yelled at him to stop, no matter how much Keith knew that Kolivan would have called for the mission to be aborted, Keith knew that the only right course of action was to use his ship to blast the Naxcela barrier apart so Voltron could escape. There was no logical guarantee that his plan would work, but Keith hadn’t been operating on facts and figures. In that moment, he allowed himself to run on intuition and instinct. His instinct had never steered him wrong before—his instinct had been part of what made him and Red such a good team, back when he was still her pilot. His ship would have broken through that barrier, at least enough so that Voltron could shatter it the rest of the way. It would have done the trick. He would have been atomized in the process, but the barrier would have broken and Voltron would have been saved. His life was opportunity cost. He could live (or die, he guessed) with that.

But it hadn’t come to that. At the last second, a blast from Lotor’s ship had sliced through the atmosphere and blasted a hole in the barrier. Keith, his instincts driving him before his mind had a chance to catch up, swerved his ship out of the way. The Naxcela mission was saved not because of Keith, but because of Lotor, who had arrived in the eleventh hour to request an audience with the coalition. If someone had told Keith a week ago that  _Lotor_ would seek  _the rebellion_ out, Keith wouldn’t have believed them. Even now, it still seemed too bewildering to be true.

But it was, and ever since the audience that ended with Lotor undergoing (and passing) the Trials of Marmora, Lotor seemed keen on spending time with him. This wasn’t something Keith really registered at first. He was as aware of Lotor as Lotor seemed to be of him, in that he paid rapt attention during the initial meeting Lotor had requested (and  _earned_ , with his saving throw), and was the one who had petitioned Kolivan to give Lotor a shot at the Trials in order to earn himself a place within the Blade of Marmora. Team Voltron hadn’t been willing to give him an alliance, a fact Keith felt was more frustrating than surprising, but Lotor had intel they needed. Lotor could be the key to defeating Zarkon. He was dangerous, and there was no doubt about that, but he was also intelligent and skilled. He could be a powerful ally, and Keith wasn’t about to let that possibility go to waste. If that meant Lotor had to join the Blade of Marmora, then so be it. Keith would fight to give them all that chance.

All the same, despite everything Lotor had done over the course of his presence in the war that made little to no sense (attacking Empire outposts, vanishing for a stretch of months—the list went on and on), the fact remained that he  _had_ been their enemy. As valuable an ally as he could be, Keith wasn’t about to forget that. However much others might have thought he was being too trusting, Keith wasn’t one to let his guard down. He wanted to know what Lotor knew, and he wanted to understand Lotor’s more bizarre actions, but that didn’t mean he felt Lotor was wholly trustworthy. Not yet. Lotor would have to earn that.

Yet although Keith was keenly aware of all of this, the one thing it took him a couple days to notice was the fact that Lotor wasn’t content with being the only one observed. Each morning, Lotor joined him for breakfast. Lotor joined him in the training rooms, and walked with him to meetings with Kolivan (which Lotor himself was not invited to). And each day, in the midst of all of this, Lotor would ask Keith to join him for a walk to the observation deck, or would ask him little questions about himself. The questions were always light—harmless. Things like how long he had been practicing swordsmanship for, how many different types of ships had he piloted, and if he had ever been out to the Ellium galaxy. Little, tiny, harmless questions that didn’t amount to very much in the end, but were still more than anyone had ever—or  _would_ ever—want to know about him. On the third day of this, Keith stopped dead in his tracks on the way to the ship dock to look over at Lotor, his brow furrowed.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked.

“Doing what?” Lotor replied, his eyebrows raised.

“Following me.”

Lotor looked bemused. “We’re conversing, aren’t we? It’d be rather difficult to continue if I didn’t walk with you.”

“But why are you talking to me?” Keith asked. It struck him, then, that he had interrupted Lotor with his question, and that he couldn’t really remember what Lotor had been talking about. A bit of uncomfortable guilt settled in his shoulders, and with it a brush of confusion, because the fact that he felt guilty about potentially hurting  _Lotor’s_ feelings was . . . bizarre.

But then again, so were so many other things about Lotor. For two days and some change Lotor had been following him around, talking about all manner of things, and yet Keith still felt like there was so much he didn’t know or understand about him.

“I find you to be a compelling conversation partner,” Lotor said, without missing a beat. Keith gaped at him. “Do you not feel the same?”

“I . . . I don’t know,” Keith said, and he wanted to kick himself the moment he said it. It wasn’t that he didn’t know, per se, as much as it was that what Lotor said caught him off-guard. But far from feeling offended, Lotor’s lips curled in a wry smile. That . . . that was interesting, but not as much as— “You like talking to me?”

“Absolutely,” Lotor answered. Once again, his answer was immediate. Keith stared at him. Lotor raised an eyebrow. “Why do you find that so difficult to believe?”

Keith blinked, then frowned, and turned to start toward the ship dock again. “I didn’t say I find it hard to believe,” he said. “Don’t put words in my mouth.”

“Even if they’re words I’ve taken from your face?” Lotor asked. Keith clenched his fists by his sides and said nothing, and Lotor chuckled. “All right. I apologize for making assumptions. But I truly do find you to be a worthwhile conversation partner, Keith. I hope you feel the same way. I think we could be friends.”

Once again, this brought Keith to a standstill. He turned to look at Lotor, eyes wide. “Friends?”

Lotor raised his eyebrows. “Do you feel differently?”

“I . . . no. I don’t know. I—” Keith huffed a sharp sigh, and turned to start down the corridor again. “I have to go to the ship dock to help test the calibration on one of our pods.”

“I know,” Lotor said, and he sounded amused. Why did he sound amused? And why did he want to be  _friends_? They had been enemies, and yeah, they weren’t now, but they had been. And that alone should have meant Lotor wanted nothing to do with him. Plenty of those who had been his  _teammates_ wanted nothing to do with him, so why did Lotor, after barely three days, want to be  _friends_? “As I was saying before, I think it might be worthwhile to look into adjusting the throttle on a few of the pods. It’ll increase the noise the engines make, but by so little the increase in speed should still be worth it.”

“Yeah,” Keith said, because he didn’t know what else to say. Not right then, anyway.

But whether he said anything else or not, Lotor was unfazed. He continued to want to spend time with Keith, regardless of how many other missions, tasks, or lessons Keith had to do that separated them. The truly confusing thing was that, after about five days of spending time with Lotor, Keith himself began to feel disappointed when he had something that pulled him away from their conversations. So far Lotor hadn’t divulged anything to Keith that would be critical in ending the war against Zarkon, and to that end, a little voice in Keith’s mind whispered that he was wasting time, no better than the Paladins and their circus shows. But even if the things they talked about weren’t mission critical, Keith found that he . . . enjoyed them, nonetheless. Lotor told him little bits and pieces about places he had been in the universe, the things he had done and seen, and Keith shared some of his own stories in kind. Lotor told Keith about his generals, and Keith in turn shared his side of the story of what had happened when he had briefly teamed up with Acxa in the Weblum. Lotor gave him little bits and pieces of Galra history, and in turn, Keith sometimes shared little bits and pieces of Earth history. And on top of it all, Lotor was a good sparring partner. The other Marmorites didn’t like to spar with Keith very much (something he had a feeling had to do with how badly they had wrecked him during the Trials, especially after Nendak laughed awkwardly and said, “I don’t want to accidentally break any more of your ribs,” when Keith had asked her to train with him), leaving him with no one to train with but the base’s A.I. training programs (and that, at least, was much like life back at the Castle had been). But Lotor had no problem sparring with him. Credit where credit was due, Lotor was an excellent swordsman. Keith felt not only some satisfaction, but also a little pride the first time he knocked Lotor’s feet out from under him.

“Incredible,” Lotor said, as Keith helped him to his feet. “No one has ever been able to do that before.”

“Really?” Keith said.

“Well,” Lotor said, “Zethrid did check me across the chest once and sent me clear across the room, but considering it wasn’t a  _leg_ sweep, I’m going to go ahead and claim that it wasn’t the same thing.”

Keith couldn’t stop himself from laughing a little at that. Lotor smiled, too.

Two weeks after Lotor joined, Keith felt they had settled into a comfortable routine. Lotor had his own assignments and tasks now (mostly regarding the information he had, and how it could be utilized to better their infiltration and strike back against the Empire), but they still found time to meet up and hang out. As weird as it was to think that he was  _hanging out_ with anyone nowadays, and much less  _Lotor_ , it was enjoyable and comfortable, and so Keith didn’t want to question it. He just wanted to enjoy it.

But as much as he did like Lotor’s company, there were still times when it was difficult to find him both comfortable and enjoyable.

It wasn’t an issue with Lotor himself. If anything, Lotor carried himself with the air of one who wasn’t aware that there was anyone else in the universe other than him and the specific person (or people) he had decided to pay attention to. But as much as Lotor had so far proven himself to be a trustworthy ally, and as much as he had passed the Trials of Marmora just as fairly as Keith himself had (and, Keith had to admit, much faster and with less injury), the rest of the Marmorites didn’t seem so keen on accepting him. Keith couldn’t necessarily blame them; they had been fighting this war for thousands of years, and Lotor was Zarkon’s son. There was nothing saying that he  _wouldn’t_ turn on them at some point. He could understand why they were wary. If he was honest, even he still had some doubts.

The distrust the Blade of Marmora still harbored toward Lotor came at a price, however. When Lotor and Keith walked into the mess hall one day for a snack (Keith himself wasn’t very hungry, but he had become hooked on pechaya juice and wanted to see if there were any bottles of it available), all eyes turned on them. The mess hall was one of the larger rooms in the base; it was at least four times the size of the first weapons division workspace, and even a little bigger, Keith thought, than the control room in the tactical wing. Two rows of long tables not unlike those Keith remembered from school cafeterias back on earth occupied most of the room, and the kitchen and food areas were off to the right. When Lotor and Keith entered, everyone seated at the tables turned to look at them. Yet though Keith looked back, his eyes sweeping the tables for familiar faces (and his heart sinking unpleasantly when he saw Pezak and Didrin seated at one of the far tables, Pezak staring directly at him with narrowed eyes), Lotor didn’t notice. Instead, he headed immediately toward the right side of the room so he could peruse the produce stand, and after giving himself a mental nudge as a reminder that what others thought really didn’t matter, Keith followed.

“Hmm, this should do,” Lotor mused. He plucked a small fruit—an appomeg, Keith thought it was called—from the produce stand, turning it this way and that as he examined it. After a second, he tossed it lightly in the air before he caught it on the back of his hand, rolling it smoothly along his fingers before he turned his hand beneath it to palm it again. He looked over at Keith with a smile. “Are you going to get anything?”

“Uh, yeah,” Keith said. The way Lotor had turned his hand around the fruit had made the fruit look like it hardly moved at all. It reminded Keith a little of a trick he had seen performed in a movie a long time ago. “One sec.”

Keith jogged to the glass drink cooler on the other side of the room to retrieve his bottle of pechaya juice, and Lotor met him halfway on his way back. With nothing more than another little smile, Lotor started to lead the way through the mess hall. It wasn’t necessary; all they had was one fruit and a glass bottle of juice. They could take that anywhere, including back to Keith’s own room. They had no reason to stay there in the mess hall, especially when everyone was once again staring at them as Lotor made his way down the rows of tables.

But though Keith was keenly aware of every set of eyes on them, Lotor still didn’t seem to notice. His head was high, his shoulders back, as he strode right down the center of the rows of tables, and when he finally chose the one next to the table where Pezak and Didrin were seated, he dropped into his seat like it was a throne instead of a cafeteria chair. Without sparing one glance to all of the piercing eyes around him, Lotor tossed his appomeg up in the air once before he caught it again.

Despite how he grimaced at the table Lotor had chosen, Keith had to hand it to him. He knew how to appear cool enough to keep milk fresh.

Keith didn’t want to sit by Pezak, but he also didn’t want anyone in the room (Lotor included) to know that he didn’t want to sit by Pezak. So instead of asking Lotor to pick any one of the other empty seats around the mess hall, Keith followed him to the table and looped around to sit on the other side, right across from Lotor. By this point, most everyone in the mess hall had gone back to ignoring them; the din was rising to a comfortable volume again as everyone resumed either their conversations or their lunches. But although Keith focused on unscrewing the lid off his pechaya juice bottle, he could still feel Pezak’s eyes on them.

“You don’t eat very much, do you?” Lotor asked him. He reclined in his chair, poised in such a way that it really did look like he was sitting in an audience chamber instead of a mess hall.

Keith shrugged. “I eat enough. I had a good breakfast.”

Lotor studied him for a moment. “Hmm. I suppose.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Keith asked, and before Lotor could answer, he said, “And don’t you need anything to drink with that?”

“Appomegs are quite juicy. I find that getting a beverage with them is superfluous,” Lotor said. He held the appomeg across the table, and grinned. “Would you like a taste?”

Keith raised his eyebrow. He could feel himself smiling a little, but he felt more bemused than anything. “No thanks,” he said.

Lotor shrugged, and pulled his appomeg back to his side of the table, though he didn’t yet take a bite. “As you wish.”  

Keith took a drink of his pechaya juice (and really, for all that he told himself he was bound to be sick of it soon enough, it was just so  _good_ ), and as he did, he heard Pezak say in a low voice, “Can you  _believe_ that? It’s disgusting.”

“Just let it go,” Didrin said quietly.

“I’m not doing anything,” Pezak said. Keith lowered his juice back down to the table. His heart was suddenly racing, and his fingers constricted around the glass. “I’m just saying—well, it’s not really surprising. Of course their kind would stick together—”

“Just—the rosselac was really good today. You should go get some—try some. It’s really good,” Didrin said. “Here, you can have some of mine if you want it.”

“I’ve had enough to eat, thank you,” Pezak said, ignoring the tray that Didrin pushed his way. “And why are you acting like that? You can’t tell me you’re okay with—”

For all that he had made it apparent that he wasn’t paying attention to anyone else in the mess hall, Lotor turned and looked directly at them, his eyebrows raised and a little smirk on his lips as he asked, “Is something the matter, gentlemen?”

“Lotor,” Keith said under his breath. Lotor ignored him, and of course he did. At the moment, his attention was focused on Pezak and Didrin. Even if he did hear Keith—and Keith was sure that he did—he wasn’t about to pry his attention away from his newest target. That just wasn’t how he worked.

Didrin’s expression went blank, even as he tried to pretend he was very interested in the rosselac on his plate, but Pezak smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes.

“Of course not,” he said. His tone was sweet as spoiled milk. “We’re thrilled to have you here with us, Prince Lotor.”

Lotor’s smile didn’t fade. He placed his elbow on the table and braced his cheek against curled fingers before he asked, “Is that so?”

“Quite,” Pezak replied. “It does all our hearts good to have Zarkon’s halfling among our ranks. I’m sure you have so much to bring to the table.”

Keith bristled as the word  _halfling_ left Pezak’s lips, but as much as it  _bothered_ him, it wasn’t  _meant_ for him. Not this time. He looked to Lotor, only to find that Lotor looked unaffected, save for the way that although his lips were still curled, his eyes weren’t smiling. There was something shrewd about his expression now—something sharp. Calculating.

Didrin stuck his fork down into his rosselac. “Think that’s probably enough,” he said quietly.

“He asked,” Pezak said, and he flailed one hand in Lotor’s direction. “I’m only answering His Highness’ question.”

“Strange that you would address me by a formality, given your lack of loyalty to the Empire, your seniority over me in this organization, and your disdain for my birth,” Lotor said. His voice held the same conversational tone as before. “But it’s a curiosity I’m willing to let slide for now, in light of more interesting prospects.”

“How gracious of you,” Pezak said sarcastically.

Lotor smiled despite the sarcasm. “I’ve been told it’s one of my finer qualities.” 

Pezak snorted a laugh and turned back to Didrin, who muttered something Keith couldn’t catch. Lotor ignored this in favor of continuing.

“The prospect I’m more interested in pursuing is whatever issue you seem to take with my presence here. It’s plain to everyone in this room that you have a problem with me, Pezak. That’s a fact I’m willing to accept, but one I’d still like the opportunity to do something about. Shall we settle this matter as Galra gentlemen would? As far as I’m aware, the training room should be free for another hour.”

Both Pezak and Didrin looked over now. Lotor had not removed his eyes from Pezak’s face; there was challenge in his gaze that almost made Keith want to volunteer for the match himself.

Pezak, on the other hand, didn’t seem so eager. He stared at Lotor, a spark akin to wariness in his eyes, before he snorted and turned away.

“No thanks,” he said acidly. “I’ve more important things to do today than exchange blades with a halfling.”

At long last, it was Lotor’s turn to huff a little laugh beneath his breath as he turned once more in his seat to face Keith. “I thought as much,” he said, just loudly enough to carry over to the other table.

Pezak took the bait. “Excuse me?”

“You remind me of a commander—or former commander, I should say—in my father’s military,” Lotor said. He turned back to Pezak and smirked at the sight of the outrage on Pezak’s face. “From your prejudice to your cowardice, you act exactly like him. The resemblance is uncanny. I imagine you’d even get along with the ice worms at that worthless outpost of his just as well as he did.”

Pezak’s eyes narrowed. “Is that a threat, mongrel?”

“ _Hey_ ,” Keith growled, and he stood with enough force to cause his chair to skid back across the floor. “Halfling” was bad enough, but to use the word  _mongrel_ —

But though Pezak turned to Keith at his outburst, Lotor was unfazed. “It’s an observation,” he said. “Surely a great,  _pure_  Galra such as yourself can make the distinction?”

“What I can make,” Pezak said, as he rose from his seat (and it was only now that Lotor stood as well, his hand poised to draw his blade from his belt), “is scrap after I take you—!”

“What is going on here?”

While Didrin put his face in his hands, Pezak, Lotor, and Keith all turned as Kolivan approached their tables. He hadn’t spoken very loudly, but he also didn’t need to. Once again, everyone in the mess hall was staring at them, even as a few of them pretended to be looking at their plates or tablets instead.

“Why don’t you ask your little halfling?” Pezak spat, as he waved one hand in Keith’s direction.

The reaction was immediate. Didrin took his face out of his hands only so that he could lace his fingers over the back of his neck instead, his head bowed. The mess hall had been quiet before, but it was dead silent now, and no one was pretending to read any longer. Kolivan narrowed his eyes, and it was in that moment that Pezak seemed to recognize his mistake. For the first time since the confrontation started, his eyes widened a little in what looked like alarm.

“What did you just say?” Kolivan demanded, his voice lethally quiet.

“I . . .” Pezak said, faltering, before he gathered what courage he had and sputtered, “Well, he  _is_.”

“ _Pez_ ak!” Didrin cried, and he sat back in his chair at last to throw his hands up.

“He  _is_!” Pezak insisted, and he turned back to throw a glance Didrin’s way before he turned back to Kolivan, whose gaze (to Keith’s eyes) looked even harder. “And you know it as well as I do. I’m not saying anything wrong here, Kolivan, it’s exactly what he is, and he’s more than willing to rub elbows with those exactly like him, so who knows what other sorts of riffraff he’ll be spreading our secrets to—”

Sudden fire flashed through Keith’s veins. “I would  _never_ do that,” he snapped. The slights against his heritage, the slurs—those he could handle, however they made his stomach twist. But he wouldn’t stand for being called traitor.  _That_ was crossing a line he wasn’t willing to let Pezak walk away from.

Pezak scoffed. “Yeah,” he said, as he gestured in Lotor’s direction. “That’s  _very_ believable.”

“That’s enough,” Kolivan said coldly. Pezak shut his mouth immediately, and drew back to stand against his table. Now that he was quiet, Kolivan turned to Keith. “Keith. Please explain what happened here.”

Weeks ago, when he had first overheard Pezak calling him  _halfling_ , Keith had decided not to tell Kolivan or anyone else. It wasn’t important. Whatever names he was called, they had no bearing on the mission at hand. And if it meant that he wasn’t truly accepted—that he didn’t really  _belong_ —that was something he could accept. It was something he  _had_ to accept. In any case, it had never been in his nature to run to someone else with his problems. He wasn’t in the business of tattling on someone who hurt his feelings. He never had been, even as a child, and he wasn’t about to start now.

But this was different. He wasn’t the only one affected now. Lotor was, too. And even setting that aside, Kolivan might have used the word  _please_ , but Keith knew common courtesy when he heard it. Kolivan wasn’t making a request. Kolivan was  _telling_ Keith to report on what happened. No matter how much Keith might have wanted to keep the incident to himself, he didn’t have very much choice in the matter.

So he said, “We—Lotor and I—were having lunch.” Kolivan glanced at Lotor, who smiled benignly back as Keith continued, “Pezak had a problem with our being here, and he said so to Didrin. Lotor overheard them, so he called Pezak on it. Pezak said he was happy Lotor was here, but he was obviously lying, and he called Lotor a— _halfling_ , so Lotor challenged him to a duel. Pezak refused, Lotor called him a coward and compared him to one of Zarkon’s commanders—”

“ _Former_ commander,” Lotor said, and there was a note of proud amusement in his voice. “I banished him to an outpost in the Ulippa system, and then my generals and I stole a teludav from said outpost. I don’t believe he holds his rank any longer.”

Keith huffed, but otherwise ignored him. “And then Pezak decided to pick a fight here in the mess hall instead of in the training room as Lotor had previously suggested, calling Lotor a . . .” Keith swallowed, and waved one hand in the air as he tried to force the word off his tongue. It took another couple of ticks, but finally he bit out, “. . .  _mongrel_ , while he was at it.”

“I see.” Kolivan stared at Keith for a second longer before he turned to Pezak. “Pezak, apologize. Now. To both of them.”

“What?” Pezak said, aghast. “Kolivan, you can’t be—”

“Did I stutter?” Kolivan said, his voice hard.

Pezak closed his mouth, his jaw clenched, and when he turned his eyes on Keith and Lotor, he did so with an expression that suggested he had just shoved an extremely sour fruit down his throat. “I’m  _sorry_ for calling you . . .” He stole another glance at Kolivan, whose expression was as glacial as it was before, before he finished, “. . . names.”

“It’s fine,” Keith said, even though it wasn’t.

“No harm done,” Lotor said, smirking, “so long as you’ve learned your lesson.”

The look Pezak gave him was as disparaging as they came, but he had no chance to say anything before Kolivan interrupted him.

“I will see to it that he has,” Kolivan said, and he turned toward the rest of the mess hall and raised his voice as he said, “The Blade of Marmora does not approve of, nor tolerate, this sort of bigotry. Those who choose to fight alongside us are valuable allies regardless of their birth. Those who have proven their worth by passing their Trials and have joined our ranks are one of us, regardless of  _their_ birth. Prejudice and discrimination are hallmarks of Zarkon’s empire. The belief that others are inferior because of their race is a belief that has allowed the Empire to oppress, subjugate, and slaughter countless millions for thousands of years. It is a belief that is not welcome here. If that is something that anyone within our organization cannot accept, then those individuals need to take it up with me. I am more than ready to explain to them exactly why their bigotry will not be tolerated here. I hope this is clear.”

A murmured assent rippled through the mess hall. Most people returned to pretending to eat, though some continued to stare avidly at the scene that had unfolded.

Kolivan turned back to Pezak. “Pezak, come with me. We are going to discuss this further.”

Pezak looked as though he wished to argue. His face was contorted in a grimace, and for a moment he opened his mouth as if to say something. A second later he closed it again, as if thinking better of it, and nodded.

“Yes, sir,” he ground out, his eyes on the floor.

“After you,” Kolivan said. He gestured for Pezak to take the exit nearest their side of the mess hall, and without lifting his eyes from the floor, Pezak spun on the ball of his foot and headed off in the direction he indicated. As Kolivan started past their table to follow after, Didrin looked up at last, his eyes wide and an anxious smile on his face.

“I—you know, I’m sorry, too, Kolivan,” Didrin said. Kolivan raised his eyebrows, and Didrin seemed to take this as a prompt to go on. “I told him not to say all that stuff out loud, out here where you and everyone else could hear, but he just—he didn’t listen—”

“You told him not to say those things  _in public_?” Kolivan asked, and though Didrin hesitated, as though realizing his mistake, he nodded slowly. “Good to know. You can come with me as well, Didrin. It seems as if you and I also have matters to discuss.”

Didrin’s shoulders slumped, but unlike Pezak, he didn’t seem to remotely want to refuse Kolivan’s command. He pushed himself up from his seat and walked after Pezak, his head bowed. Kolivan watched him for only a moment before he turned back to Keith at last. On instinct, Keith stood a little straighter, but Kolivan’s eyes softened as he looked back to Keith.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” Kolivan said quietly.

“It’s fine,” Keith said again, because the last thing he wanted was for Kolivan to have to worry about him. Kolivan had enough on his plate; they all had more than enough to focus on. This wasn’t worth Kolivan’s attention. “It’s nothing—”

“It isn’t,” Kolivan said, and Keith shut his mouth. Kolivan put his hand on Keith’s shoulder, and squeezed it gently. “If that ever happens again, please tell me.”

Keith’s throat felt suddenly choked, as if he had taken Lotor up on his earlier offer to share the appomeg, but had swallowed it whole instead of just taking a bite instead. He nodded in lieu of speaking, and Kolivan—taking that answer for what it was—gave his shoulder another bracing squeeze before he exited the mess hall after Pezak and Didrin.

Once Kolivan left, the other occupants of the mess hall slowly and clumsily began to return to whatever they had been doing before. The din—voices and clattering silverware—steadily rose, even though the sounds were clumsy and unnatural. Keith turned back to Lotor, and felt his heart jolt when he saw that Lotor was watching him. That was weird—there was no reason for him to feel so startled. They had come here together, so it was only natural that Lotor would have looked to him now that the incident had ended.

“As exciting as that was,” Lotor said, showing that he, at the very least, saw nothing startling or unnatural about their present situation at all, “I’m afraid it’s rather killed my desire to stay here. Shall we relocate? What we have here is easy enough to take on the road.”

Keith cleared his throat, and reached for the cap to his juice bottle. “Yeah,” he said gruffly. “Let’s go.”

**\- - -**

 

They took their lunch, light as it was, to one of the unoccupied observation decks. Lotor went straight for the window when they arrived, and sat with his back in one corner, his long legs stretched out in front of him. Keith, too, sat against the window, but in the opposite corner. He stretched one leg out, but kept his other leg drawn up, his arm draped across it. They had been quiet on their way to the observation deck, Lotor for once not asking probing questions or making observations about the war or organization, and Keith similarly at a loss for what to say. But after another moment of prolonged silence, Lotor’s eyes on the stars outside of the window, Keith finally asked, “How did you manage to look so calm back there?”

Lotor didn’t look away from the window, and though his lips twitched, he didn’t smile. “I looked calm because I was calm,” he said. “Nothing Pezak said was bothersome.”

“How?” Keith asked, and when Lotor looked over with slightly raised eyebrows, he clarified, “How did that not bother you? He called you a—a—”

“Mongrel,” Lotor said, and though Keith felt something lash through him—something akin to fire and ice all at once—Lotor let the word roll of his tongue like it was nothing more than ‘apple’ or 'basket.’ “Mongrel, cur, half-breed—I’ve heard them all before. It isn’t anything new.”

Keith turned his glare to his knees. “Still.”

“After a while, Keith, you grow desensitized. This attitude is not new, nor is it exclusive to Galra. Many Galra don’t appreciate those of us who aren’t ‘pure,’ but many non-Galra don’t appreciate those of us who are mixed with this particular race. This experience must be new for you, but given time—”

“It’s not,” Keith said, before he could help himself. He looked up to see Lotor staring at him, curiosity like fire in his eyes, and Keith looked away again. “Not totally.”

“How long have you known about your heritage?”

“Not very. I only learned recently. But . . .” He took a deep breath. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Let’s just say that there were some people on Earth that—they didn’t know that I’m Galra, but it didn’t matter. What they did know about me was enough.”

The weight of a thousand questions hung in Lotor’s silence before he finally said, “ _Part_ -Galra.”

Keith frowned, and looked back. “What?”

“You’re  _part_ -Galra, Keith,” Lotor repeated. “You and I—we're  _part-_ Galra. The universe may look down on us for it, but it isn’t something either of us should shy away from. We are part-Galra—that is an important part of the foundation of who we are as people. Rather than accept the unjust shame others try to foist upon our shoulders for it, we should instead embrace it. We are part-Galra, but that makes us no less capable of achieving our potential. It makes us no less extraordinary.” Lotor grinned, and something about his sudden smile was fierce. “I’d say it makes us more.”

 _If you straddle a fence, you can’t say you’re in either yard._ That was what Keith’s father had said to him so many years ago. Those words had taken on a new meaning for Keith, but as Keith locked eyes with Lotor and felt his heart lift along with Lotor’s smile, he realized that there was another way to look at the situation. They were both part-Galra. Both of them had ties to either side of the fence they were placed on. But Lotor wasn’t straddling the fence. Rather than remain seated, passively accepting the stares of those in the yards on either side of him, Lotor had chosen to stand. He stood atop the fence, walked along it, and now he was offering a hand to help Keith do the same.

Keith smiled.

“Yeah,” he said, as Lotor’s smile grew. “I agree.”

 


End file.
